{"id":633688,"date":"2026-04-27T08:22:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T08:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/633688\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T08:22:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T08:22:15","slug":"why-it-would-be-very-odd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/633688\/","title":{"rendered":"Why it would be very odd"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chinese brand BYD, which is now one of the largest car manufacturers in the world, has spoken with Formula 1<\/a> CEO Stefano Domenicali<\/a> about a possible entry into the sport. Should that ever happen, it would be highly remarkable.<\/p>\n

It is a wish of Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the president of the FIA, to bring a Chinese manufacturer into Formula 1. The Chinese market is enormous, so a large fan base would seem guaranteed (which means plenty of revenue for Formula 1 and the FIA). From that perspective, it\u2019s not surprising that in this case Domenicali is sounding out manufacturers about their interest in Formula 1.<\/p>\n

The country is focused on electric cars<\/p>\n

There is, however, a notable aspect here: after all, the Chinese car market is focused on electric vehicles. For BYD, that\u2019s certainly no different. The brand has now established itself in the European market as a more than formidable competitor to Tesla. So what commercial benefit would an electric car manufacturer gain from entering Formula 1?<\/p>\n

It should be noted that within the FIA and Formula 1, a shift appears to be underway\u2014from what was once a largely electric future to engines that once again reliably run on (bio) gasoline. It cannot be ruled out that the electric component of the power units will be reduced, or even disappear entirely in the next cycle in 2031.<\/p>\n

From that perspective, BYD could be a real outlier, and the Formula E Championship or even the World Endurance Championship (WEC) might be a better fit. In the latter, you are allowed to design your own engine, with more room for maneuver than in Formula 1. If you want to race with a fully electric car, you can. Whether that will currently take you far is another question.<\/p>\n

A difficult entry processFinally, it is highly uncertain whether a new F1<\/a> team will be admitted to the grid in the relatively short term. The way Cadillac was approved is still fresh in everyone’s memory, which caused quite a headache for the FIA at least. With a twelfth team added, the revenue pie for the other eleven teams would shrink again, so it\u2019s clear not everyone is eager to make it happen.<\/p>\n

All in all, the talks between BYD and Domenicali seem to have been truly exploratory, and for now we should not expect the manufacturer to join Formula 1 anytime soon.<\/p>\n

Stay up to date with the latest Formula 1 news? Follow GPblog.com on WhatsApp Channels<\/a> and receive the most important updates first.Make GPblog your preferred source on Google and see our content first in Google Discover<\/a> and Google News.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chinese brand BYD, which is now one of the largest car manufacturers in the world, has spoken with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[13449,64,63,817,35119,813,816,85,52474],"class_list":{"0":"post-633688","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-analysis","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-f1","12":"tag-f1-news","13":"tag-formula-1","14":"tag-formula1","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-stefano-domenicali"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}